Looking back: a post I wrote on June 3 2011 (improved Nov 2012) - Living in Maastricht

Maastricht is
somewhat of an enigma.

Maastricht: a
mixed-up city.

Firstly: Maastricht
is not really an inherently 'Dutch' city, it's walls echo the taint of history
and past-battle-lines. The tourist-ridden Maastricht has a distinctly European
feel, with splashes of belgium, germany and france. Old architecture, 'chocolate
box' houses and cobbled streets are paired with the new and industrial, making
Maastricht a truly contradictory place to be.

There seem to be many sub-sections to Maastricht society. There are the working-class 'real people' of Maastricht, living in slightly the less historic and beautiful out-skirts of Maastricht. They often work in the shops, cafes and bars in the centre. There are those in Maastricht only for business. Suited Dutch men from the north that have found a niche in Maastricht and hold business meetings and important gatherings in the many cafes and bars that the town has to offer, yet not really integrated into the city. There are the extremely rich old retired couples, that parade around the city in designer clothes with a miniature dog peeking out of their designer handbags. There are the students (almost none of which actually come from Maastricht) and the varying social sub-sections along nationality, social-class or academic lines.

There is certainly
a real divide between 'Town and Gown', in other words, the real working town of
Maastricht, and those in Maastricht for studying or other university-related
purposes. The students living in Maastricht benefit from a strong historical
and cultural vibe and the ease of cycling (in such a small place) from
university, to shopping, to the cinema, to the cafes and so on. However, the
age-old problem of Town vs Gown is still not overcome (as seen in many old
universities such as Oxford and Cambridge) this division, as well as being a
class-divide is also partially due to the truly international make-up of the
student body living in Maastricht, where it creates - to some extent - a lack
of integration.

Language being a
strong component in this. Many of Maastricht University's International
Students come from neighbouring Belgium or Germany. Therefore the mix of French,
Flemmish, German and English (as well as Dutch) spoken amongst the students
differs greatly from the locals, where - amongst themselves - they mainly speak
only Dutch (English to tourists) and often use, the practically
incomprehensible to foreigners: local Limburg dialect. Even amongst the Dutch
students studying in Maastricht, even they are not really at home - as
Maastricht is not a very 'Dutch' city and only a small proportion of the Dutch
students studying in Maastricht, are actually from Maastricht.

The University: confident students, with a new (and sometimes confusing) way of learningProblem Based Learning (PBL)

Secondly:
Maastricht University is (so I'm told) one of the only universities to
incorporate PBL (Problem Based Learning) system into all departments. This
means that students must approach their learning in an independent, confident
and well-articulated way.

First we are given
a 'problem' which we discuss in small groups and come up with some ideas of the
sorts of things that we wish to discover while studying this 'problem'. This is
guided by the tutor who knows the content of the course and therefore makes
sure that all topics are covered that must be covered in order to pass the
course. The tutor in some cases is practically silent, where they merely
interject when the students are in entirely the wrong direction - and in others
the tutor talks for a large proportion of the time. This depends greatly on the
teaching style of each tutor and the most appropriate way of learning for each
course.

There is also a
different 'discussion leader' appointed each class. This is one of the students
that must chair and steer the meeting. Often this student has done far more
in-depth research into the matter that they are 'discussion leading'.

After the problem
is discussed, we group our thoughts on a white board by a secretary. This is
called 'clustering' and is, in reality, often left out.

After the ideas are
'clustered' we come up with Learning Goals or LGs, which are a set of usually
around 5 questions that we wish to answer during our reading and
lectures.

After this tutorial
we read the readings, attend the lectures, maybe do some extra research and
then return to the second tutorial (or post-discussion) later in the week. In
this session we discuss what we learnt, clarify it and begin the next
'problem'.

This approach is
for the most part a good learning experience, although - for such a cutting
edge learning system - there doesn't seem to be many of constant improvements.
Feedback from the students would be extremely useful and although we get to
give feedback on each individual course, I think that it would be excellent if
we could give feedback on our actual learning process.

That
aside, PBL is new, strange and different, and to an outsider may make no sense.

University College Maastricht (UCM) - a faculty within Maastricht University, but separate.(confused, competitive & high achieving students)

Thirdly: UCM is the
'odd' faculty at MaastrichtUniversity.
Where we can choose to take almost any subject that we wish to take and most
students are Internationally oriented and many have a very liberal outlook. By
that I mean: UCM has the reputation for having the students that want to 'save
the world'.

You study a 3 year
programme called 'Liberal Arts and Sciences', fully taught in English (although
many students take 4 years to complete the programme), where many students go
on to study masters at some of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Within the
Netherlands, the University Colleges are quite elite and are amongst the only
University programmes that insist on a strict selection process, involving an
interview. (The Dutch University system works differently than the UK and is
generally very egalitarian - will write about this later).

The course is
intense and alot of work, students generally have 5 tutorials a week (10 hours)
and 2 - 3 lectures a week (4 - 6 hours). On top of that you are expected to
cover alot of reading material in a short time. Due to the fact that you are
doing so many different disciplines, they make you work for it.

UCM has it's own
building and a gorgeous one at that. A converted church from the 1400s, it now
has a beautiful wood and glass interior. Complete with a 'common room',
computer rooms, "standing up computers" (for quickly checking your
e-mail etc), a lecture hall (which is in what used to be the chapel) and all
this centred around a beautiful court-yard.

UCM
has 6 'periods' per year, and 2 semesters per year (so 3 periods per semester).

Each period is 7
weeks and the final week (the 7th) is exam week (as opposed to the other
Maastricht University faculties that do their exams in the 8th week). We also
have mid-term exams in week 3 or 4. So essentially we can end up with exams
every 4 weeks.

Each 'period' (7
weeks) has 3 subjects, one of which must be a 'skill' subject (research methods
[statistics], academic skills, a language, argumentation, lab skills, think
tank, undergraduate research project etc).

On top of this you
must 'declare' your concentration (Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences or an
Integrated concentration of two of the aforementioned) by your 2nd year.

Within your
concentration you must take 4 introductory courses (or 1000 level), 8
intermediate or advanced courses (2000 or 3000) and 4 advanced courses (3000).
Then you must take 2 courses in each of the other disciplines. For example if
your concentration is Science then you must take two social science courses and
two humanities courses over the course of the three years at UCM.

Most students also
take a semester abroad (places such as Berkeley - University of California, University of Sydney, Australian National University - Canberra, Sciences Po Toulouse/Lille being the most popular destinations).

This
high work load and high concentration of highly motivated students leads - to a
certain extent - to a slight divide within the university. Sometimes UCM
students will look down on the other faculties as 'less broad', 'less well
rounded', 'less pressured', 'less clever' - as well as other faculties
sometimes seeing UCM as 'stuck-up hippies'.

On top
of all this is what you may call 'UCM syndrome'. This is the name that I like
to give to the phenomenon of the highly motivated and 'doing-everything' UCM
student.

Because of the very
nature of UCM (a high workload course for highly motivated and intelligent
students - which means many contact hours, you have to be good at talking
knowledgeably on front of a group [PBL], often from an international background
and often with a liberal world view) it breeds the 'SuperStudent'.

Many UCM students,
as well as studying are also involved in a crazy amount of other activities. To
name but a few: SIFE (a sustainability project), UNIVERSALIS (the UCM student
study association), often the dutch students are part of a sorority or
fraternity (eg. Tragos, Koko, Circumflex), or a sports association (Saurus), or
involved in the the many UCM committees (party, charities etc), the other
activities at UCM (choir, orchestra, debate, yearbook, magazine, arts and
photo), organising a festival, student representation (either the council or
board... or both), many students also have a job, or starting up a business, or
an NGO or are in the United Netherlands Delegation, or are doing PEERS the
undergraduate research project, many will also attend the gym as well as partying
hard.

This at once is a
fantastic thing, being in an environment of such highly motivated (and often
highly strung) people, but also at times intimidating. Excellence becomes the
norm.

As UCM is the only
University College in the Netherlands not to have a campus. Therefore
students are sorting out their own food, rent, laundry etc as well as
studying.

Since UCM is
international, the tuition language of English is often not the first language
for many. This can sometimes create a situation where everyone is 'speaking' English, but not everyone is 'thinking' in English. This can lead to subtle communication issues or a feeling of distance/detachment from the discussion.All of the above can lead to, what is more commonly known as 'UCM-breakdown'.
Due to the high pressure that many students put on themselves and others, the
high work-load can lead to people giving up, failing, dropping out, not
sleeping - and all the time going to great lengths to cover up the fact that
they may be struggling.

So as
much as I love everything that UCM does, and how much I prefer this to the
university education that I may have got elsewhere, it has it's pitfalls - and
I wish that UCM had more student support.

UCM:
divided within.

Of
course with such a small community (less than 600 students), divisions form
between the students - especially with so many languages, cultures and
backgrounds.

However, generally
most students are incredibly middle-class and that, I guess, is probably an
inevitable aspect of university and tertiary education in general. The make-up
of UCM is roughly 30% Dutch, 30% German, 30% students from other countries in
Europe and 10% students from outside Europe.

Within this, many
languages are spoken, and therefore many sub-groups and sub-cultures form. As
well as stereotypes. That said, I do really enjoy studying with different
nationalities in UCM as there will be many different perspectives in one
classroom (for example, my politics class was really interesting with Dutch,
German, American, Finnish, British and Indian perspectives).

It still remains
however, that UCM can be annoyingly full of middle and upper-class bureaucrats'
children, 'champagne socialists' and 'rich hippies' - talking about changing
the world and back-packing across Africa,
whilst sitting on front of the latest AppleMac.